Nanny Anita’s Trip to the National Gallery

For this week’s Tuesday morning cookie adventure I took my youngest charge (2 years) to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. I had seen online that they did trails around the gallery, but unfortunately the lady at the information desk told us that these trails are for 5 plus, that they did not do anything for younger children and perhaps she would enjoy going down into the basement and pressing buttons on the information screen. That did not seem at all fun for either my charge or myself, so we decided to make our own trail.

Our first stop was to get in line for The Sunflowers by Van Gogh. Did you know that the colour yellow represents happiness and friendship? Or that he painted 7 of these pictures? From there we headed into rooms 45 to 43 trying to find any pictures that caught our eye. Two of the pictures that my charge found most interesting were Surprised! by Rousseau (it reminded her of the Tiger that came to Tea) and The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Delaroche, she did not like the fact that Lady Jane had a blind fold on.

Our trip was short and sweet, we looked at maybe 5 paintings, but that was the perfect amount for a 2 year old. We stopped by the gift shop on our way out and picked up some postcards of the paintings we had seen, which she took great pleasure in showing me on our trip home.

If you plan to visit the National Gallery my tip would be to look online at which paintings they have, pick a few out (perhaps with a theme e.g. animals) and make your own trail.

About The Author

Nanny Anita is our resident Super Nanny. Having trained at the famous Norland College, in Bath, she has over 12 years experience, working all over the world with children from 2 months to 17 years old.
Nanny Anita is an expert when it comes to keeping the little ones entertained and writes a column with Leonora called 'Get Crafty' for Little London magazine.
Nanny Anita has been on hand to answer our reader questions, and she provides weekly arts, crafts and activities for families to do with their children at home.
She really is a modern day Mary Poppins!

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